Earlier this year, we published a summary analysis of trends in Irish Aid funding. It showed that the economic crisis that hit Ireland in 2008 has taken a heavy toll on the Irish government budget for overseas aid. But it also showed that much of the information contained in Irish Aid’s annual reports is not immediately useful for an analysis of spending, on a year-by-year comparison.

Despite Ireland’s commitment to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), there still is scope for improvement in the way the Government reports on what its overseas aid programme actually does. For instance, the annual reports come out late, so the most recent information available to us now is over 15 months old. And the annual reports do not provide adequate detail to meaningfully track expenditure on some of the key priorities that Irish Aid has set for itself.

In an address to the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS in June 2006, then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledged that Ireland would increase spending on HIV and other communicable diseases to at least € 100 million per year. He went on to say that 20% of these resources would be spent on programmes that benefit children.